Okay one of the frequent problems I notice with people when it comes to diet and exercise is of all things mentality of its approach. What do I mean by this? It's simple, people overdo it.

When it comes to dieting, the most frequent problem I see is people tend to eat far less than they really physically should. One person posted asking if eating only 800 calories a day would be a good idea. I'll give you a hint, it's less than half of what I normally recommend to even the most petite people. My guide to Nutrition (http://www.cosplay.com/showthread.php?t=215689) and journal entry should be enough help to you those looking for proper nutrition tips.

Now for exercise, people have a mentality of aiming for high numbers seeing workouts as an endurance gauntlet. more= better. This is only half true. People should exercise regularly but not to excessive levels of repetition, not significantly heavy weight which would only produce less than 8 repetitions (for beginners mind you ) and nothing longer than 6-7 hours a week.

Let's take a look at some examples in the anime world. The anime Dragonball Z portrays superhuman fighters who spend a great majority of the series undergoing intense training. One of the main ones They highlight in the series is the use of the gravity chamber. a room that can increase the gravitational force in the room. Goku our protagonist uses this room to train at up to 100 times earths typical gravity. lets take a look:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSKgwhk3UYM&feature=related&fmt=34

I highlight this clip because Goku understands the first impracticality to overtraining; the risk of injury. I tried to find more clips of the training process he undergoes on youtube, but I couldn't find much. So let me explain what he does.

1. He adjusts the gravity incrementally.

Lets do a quick numbers crunch here. In the manga, Goku had weighed an even 100 kg (220 lbs for those in the states). Had he started at 100 times earths gravity, he be 10,000 kg (22,000 lbs). Thats about the gravitational force of the impact of a car crash at 40 mph sustained. Astronauts barely go over 4g durring liftoff. so taking it slow makes sense. How slow you may ask??

2. he rests before adjusting the weight.

You should have noticed goku eating a bean and magically getting better. those are known as sensu beans, which basically are magic beans that provide you the equivalence of 40 days worth of recovery plus a full meal that you keep you going for days if need be. unfortunately, we do not have that luxury in our life, so we have to settle for proper diet and plenty of rest. at least 7 hours of sleep.

3. he trains at this level until it feels near natural for him.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JxspnUoWC6s&feature=related&fmt=34

At this point I will remind everyone excess reps are not suggested and these guys are superhuman. When you train, you should be using slightly heavier weights, but not too much to sacrifice a good clean form.

Now what happens when you ignore everything I just mentioned? Lets take a look at Vegeta. Vegeta has an ego to him and literally spends the entire series trying to be the strongest with a determination unrivaled by any character you will ever know. Because of this, he often disregards every piece of advice possible to overtraining. He ends up training in the gravity chamber jumping up to 400 times normal gravity in the course of several days (goku got up to 100 in 7 days with the aid of the sensu beans) without rest or use of sensu beans. We actually see here the very best case scenario possible to come out of overtraining here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7foBppV5V4&feature=related&fmt=34

Lets go back to another quick numbers crunch. lets say Vegeta weighs the same as goku, in 400g, he'd be doing over 88,000 lb pushups. I did a google image search of 88,000 lbs, and this is what I found:

Apparently these can hold up to that much weight. now cram all that weight into the size of a body. Thats the best example I can think of next to this level of gravitational force sustained.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZjhxuhTmGk&feature=related&fmt=34

Now again Im stressing Vegeta here is given the very best possible case scenarios of overtraining he miraculously avoids injury, and gets stronger in the process, but the reality is You will not be nearly as strong without proper training. sure vegeta was able to sustain 400g eventually, but that was only because the dial would not go any further. meaning eventually he reached a level of tolerance. What if he could keep increasing it? the reality is he would just keep cranking until he likely succumbed to fatal injury. outside of too intense of training will only leave you exhausted and fatigued outside of your exercising. those who lift less, but train properly will not only eventually match the overtrainer, but have energy left over.

This man got his body doing only 30-45 minutes a day of intense exercise 3-4 times a week. During this time Arnold was bodybuilding too, only he and other bodybuilders were training everyday up to two hours at a time. So how was mike getting the same results these guys were?? It didn't seem physically possible. While everyone was lifting to the point where they would almost collapse, mike was at home watching tv. The reality was steroid usage was in full swing in these days. The bodybuilding industry makes most of its money from supplementation and recovery agents which would have compensated for their gross overtraining, if anything, they were hindering muscle growth from lack of rest! Mike on the other hand being an intellectual, figured out rest is what cause more growth than anything else. Of course his revelation did have its consequences. In the 1980 Mr Olympia, he and Arnold were the two main attractions, mike had gained 10lbs of muscle that year and was expected by many to come in second at the very least.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1CCc0eArbw&fmt=35 take a look yourselves you will notice a greater size of muscle mass compared to arnold especially in the back.

However mike that year was put into fifth place. Now before I sound biased in this, I wouldn't be the first. this is what mike had to say during an interview on bodybuilding.com:

"The 1980 Mr. Olympia was definitely fixed. The promoter of that contest was Paul Graham, a very, very close friend of Arnold's. As it turned out, while the rules stated that individuals had to officially enter their application to compete one month before the contest, the IFBB bent the rule and let Arnold enter the day before! He waited that long because by that point he knew who the judges were. CBS, who was there to film the event for future televising, was convinced it was fixed and discovered that a majority of the judges had either close personal or financial ties with Arnold. Well, so convinced - and pissed off - was CBS Sports that, despite the time, money and effort required to send a film crew half way around the world to Australia to film a sporting event, they refused to air that contest."

So the long and short of what I am getting at is never to overdo it. Cranking things up to 11 is dangerous when it comes to exercise and diet. I hope this gives some illustration to the subject.

distantarray

08-31-2010, 02:26 PM

lol pretty funny videos, but you touched the over training aspect but not the diet. Generally people find that 3,500 calories is 1 pound of fat, so when people hear they should take in 2,000 calories a day to be healthy, they also find that if you cut 500 calories a week you can lose 1 pound a week (7x500=3,500) which is correct.

But anything under 1,200 calories a day is not recommended from a medical stand point. Like having anything under 4-5% body fat is not recommended cause without it your body can have trouble keeping it's internal organs warm. It needs 1,200 calories to regulate your bodily functions properly.

So if you take if you want to lose weight, remember that if your planning to lose a pound a day, you can safely run for 500 calories worth, and eat another 500 and still lose FAT.

I can't over stress the fact that people often mistake their progress of losing weight as a real progress. Often ignoring health and knowledge to attain their magic number. Since women have been programed to compare and compete with other women.

They think less is better often, and it drives me insane. When you lose weight, you can lose water, blood, hair, food, waste, gas, or whatever that's also a variable. Another practice that I see is girls going OMG I gained 2 pounds weighing themselves with cloths on.... People don't often realize if your fully dressed you can easily add 5-15 pounds of cloths on without realizing. Your body can change 5-10+ pounds on a single day (in extremes) if your full, drank a lot, didn't go to the bathroom, hair soaking wet etc.

Don't stress weight but measure your progress with before and after pictures, how old cloths fit, body fat calculators and your friends going damn you look good! :p

If your losing fat and gaining muscle you can stay at your exact same weight but be making amazing progress. Personally I went from 165 @ 25% body fat, and now I'm at 165 at 10% body fat now. I look and feel like a COMPLETELY different person. Yet most women would still be so fixated on a magic number like they had in high school. But in high school you didn't need to eat right or workout for those numbers, so now your factoring in exercise and added muscle tone, you'll NEVER hit the exact same number unless you were chubby in high school, and got into better shape than you were in high school.

If you want to look and feel like you were in high school you can easily add 5-10 pounds to that and that should be a more accurate number, many girls will actually over work and over diet to get the last few pounds to their goal, and all this is doing is destroying their bodies in the process. Never go for a magic number on the scale, go for a magic number on body fat calculator, or a shirt or jeans you set your goal into that you'll fit into.

Kasinator

08-31-2010, 02:47 PM

Thanks distantarray! Now we just need to find anime characters that are anorexic or nutritionists! :P But seriously thanks for the extra info.

SamuriSmurfX

08-31-2010, 09:55 PM

Oh, the urge... I shall resist defending *some* benefits to over training. =P

Archangelz

09-01-2010, 01:10 AM

Wow, thanks for the information. I knew overtraining was bad but it was especially interesting reading that bit about Mike Mentzer. Before that thing above I had never even heard about him or about the 1980 Mr. Olympia contest issue you mentioned. Do you have a link to any other detailed information on how Mentzer trained?

distantarray

09-01-2010, 03:03 AM

Oh, the urge... I shall resist defending *some* benefits to over training. =P

yea like increased estrogen production :P

Kasinator

09-01-2010, 07:15 AM

Wow, thanks for the information. I knew overtraining was bad but it was especially interesting reading that bit about Mike Mentzer. Before that thing above I had never even heard about him or about the 1980 Mr. Olympia contest issue you mentioned. Do you have a link to any other detailed information on how Mentzer trained?

there is quite a bit on him. the full interview from bodybuilding.com is here (http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/mminter.htm). You can find some interesting interviews, a full lecture and a couple of his workouts on youtube with no effort. the rest you can find just googleing his name.:bigtu:

Mike was ab big believer in H.I.T. training. though I must admit I find it to be a bit lacking, but the compensation is more weight vs more time which I will agree with wholeheartedly.